"Like a well-stocked IKEA, Why Are You So Sad? Has everything you need
for your home and your heart. Jason Porter has written an astute,
intelligent, and hilarious book." --Gary Shteyngart, author of Super
Sad True Love Story
Have we all sunken into a species-wide bout of clinical depression?
Porter's uproarious, intelligent debut centers on Raymond Champs, an
illustrator of assembly manuals for a home furnishings corporation, who
is charged with a huge task: to determine whether the world needs
saving. It comes to him in the midst of a losing battle with
insomnia--everybody he knows, and maybe everybody on the planet, is
suffering from severe clinical depression. He's nearly certain something
has gone wrong. A virus perhaps. It's in the water, or it's in the
mosquitoes, or maybe in the ranch-flavored snack foods. And what if we
are all too sad and dispirited to do anything about it? Obsessed as he
becomes, Raymond composes an anonymous survey to submit to his
unsuspecting coworkers--"Are you who you want to be?," "Do you believe
in life after death?," "Is today better than yesterday?"--because what
Raymond needs is data. He needs to know if it can be proven. It's a big
responsibility. People might not believe him. People, like his wife and
his boss, might think he is losing his mind. But only because they are
also losing their minds.
Or are they?
